Re: [PLUG] Slides for qmail talk

[mjd-list-plug2@plover.com (Mark Dominus)]

> But note how consistent Wikipedia is on the matter:
> 
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._A._R._Hoare
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Floyd

I note that the quotation in the Hoare article, atrributed to Hoare,
is word-for-word identical with a sentence from Knuth's article
"Structured Programming with GO TO Statements":

        There is no doubt that the grail of efficiency leads to
        abuse.  Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking
        about, or worrying about, the speed of noncritical parts of
        their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have
        a strong negative impact when debugging and maintenance are
        considered.  We _should_ forget about small efficiencies, say
        about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of
        all evil.

        Donald E. Knuth
        ACM _Computing Surveys_, Vol. 6, No. 4, December 1974, p. 268.

> Anyone know a more authoritative source?

I put the sentence into the Wikipedia article on Floyd attributing the
aphorism to him.  I did that because I had read an article of Knuth's
in which he remarked that the aphorism was usually atrributed to him,
but that he had actually gotten it from Floyd.

After correcting for the obvious misattribution in the Hoare article,
we are left with no evidence at all for Hoare.  I am going to stick
with Floyd.  If I can dig up the citation for the place where Knuth
attributes it to Floyd, I will let you know.

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